> But if AMD were to introduce something purpose-built (eg, with a Matlab-like syntax), then that might compel devs who aren't assembly or GPU gurus to develop

> But if AMD were to introduce something purpose-built (eg, with a Matlab-like syntax), then that might compel devs who aren't assembly or GPU gurus to develop against this. Does anyone know if it's possible to program GPUs today without using a new, special purpose programming language? That would be the killer app for GPUs. I see your point about most languages not admitting auto-vectorization. But couldn't you take a compilable functional language like Gambit Scheme, Clojure, or Haskell and emit GPU code for constructs like map and fold on numeric vector types?